Dr. Brentan Alexander joined Synonym as chief investment officer in August 2022, bringing his unique background in first-commercial project finance to the bioeconomy. Brentan’s entrepreneurial background and deep expertise in the fields of electrochemistry and thermochemistry allow him to engage with project development and project finance at a foundational level, wrapping underlying technical breakthroughs in the required commercial structures to enable financing. He has seen over 1,000 different projects over his career, giving him unparalleled perspective into the structures, risks, and opportunities that are attractive to project finance investors and the minimum requirements to attract capital. Prior to Synonym, Brentan served in numerous executive roles at New Energy Risk (“NER”), a leading technology performance insurer, including chief science officer, chief commercial officer, and president. Throughout his nearly 10 years at NER, Brentan used his knowledge of technical and commercial financing needs to underwrite the applicability of technology performance insurance to NER clients, as well as each client’s likelihood of success. By the end of his tenure with NER, Brentan had overseen the underwriting, structuring, and execution of every deal that New Energy Risk closed, representing over $2b in deployed insurance capital and $3b in total project capital.  Brentan received his PhD from Stanford University in Mechanical Engineering. He is the author of numerous peer-reviewed scientific publications and has been honored as an NDSEG Fellow (2009-2012) and a Rohsenow Fellow (2007-2008). He holds MS and BS degrees in Mechanical Engineering from MIT.